Can NFT BAYC topple CryptoPunks?

Crypto Twitter discussed whether the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) reserve price could flip CryptoPunks, but what were the key factors in the discussion?

From a modest mint price of 0.08 Ether (ETH), BAYC rose to the top of the NFT to compete with one of the strongest NFTs, CryptoPunks.

With a steady but accelerated rate of growth, many in the crypto space are speculating that BAYC will eventually flip the CryptoPunks and offers a number of reasons to support it.

To know which collection is king in the NFT, one has to look at the driving factor between the two collections. Given the current split between mainstream media adoption and intellectual property (IP) rights granted to its owners, the BAYC and CryptoPunks collections also have a number of unique owners. This is important because the number of individual owners is often a dispersion of the owners, making them less dependent on a single sale that determines the total value or minimum price of the property.

Let’s take a look at some of the factors NFT proponents and traders are talking about when flipping CryptoPunks from BAYC.

Two different experiments and visions

The stagnation of CryptoPunks compared to BAYC’s dynamic marketing capabilities led many to speculate that “flipping” was inevitable. While there are many licensing options available to developers, “no copyright” is not offered at LarvaLabs, the parent company of CryptoPunks.

As a result, many people went to Twitter for around comment support this assumption. A # 4156 CryptoPunk was once sold for 2,500 ethers amid a dispute over Larva Labs’ stance on Creative Commons 0 (CC0) – also known as “unlicensed”. One user wrote:

“That’s not a claim, it’s activism. They happen in the market all the time. Stakeholders who believe they can add value try to justify their position. If it fails (as seems to be the case here), they sell and move on. “

In addition to intellectual property issues, groups of individuals appear to be “turning around” as BAYC appears to have complete control over its marketing and strategic partnerships.

Launched April 2021, the fun but boring monkeys were minted for 0.08 ETH, which was worth $ 300 at the time. Not long after big names like NBA star Stephen Curry began turning his Twitter profile picture into monkeys, the market began to surge, cementing the collection as the definitive “blue chip”.

Now that BAYC has garnered the attention and acceptance of mainstream media as well as celebrities, it seems to have developed very differently from CryptoPunks. More than just individuals, BAYC is entering into strategic partnerships with big brands like Adidas and recently announced a partnership with Animoca Brands, a Hong Kong-based software company focused on games and blockchain for future play-to-earn (P2E) games .

When confirming the partnership with Adidas, BAYC refer on potential interoperability – the ability to exchange data in different systems or in this case the metaverse.

CryptoPunks was first created on June 23, 2017 for free for anyone with an Ethereum wallet. The only charge is gas for minting. Although CryptoPunks was considered by many to be the first “NFT” at the time, it was not an ERC-721 token per se. While CryptoPunks is based on the Ethereum blockchain, it turns out to be older than the ERC-721 standard and closer to the ERC-20 token standard.

According to LarvaLabs, they no longer have control over the code that is used to buy, sell and trade CryptoPunks over the blockchain. By giving up control, the company has made the Code more trustworthy through transparency, provided it does everything it promises.

Whether or not the community already knew this is a different story.

The creator controls the IP or gives up

There appears to be a change in how the values ​​are placed in the NFT collection. The controversy is about who owns the rights: creator or owner?

Many people worry about projects that give property owners limited rights. However, very few NFT projects fit the CC0 mentality. A couple of NFT projects that work this way are CrypToadz and NounsDAO – a project near @ punk4156.

“It’s not about copyright or not, it’s about making pixels as censorship-resistant as tokens. If you don’t assign the same permissions to tokens and images, what’s the point of tying them together on a blockchain forever? “

Satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the limited permissions granted to CryptoPunks owners caused Ape Punk # 4156 to change. Despite having a fairly close relationship with CryptoPunks – specifically the relationship behind their “brand” Punks # 4156, Ape Punk was listed for 2,500 ETH worth $ 10.26 million. When the third highest CryptoPunks went on sale, a lot of people were talking about this historic transaction on Twitter.

Copyright issues caused one of the core community members to give up, and because of its reputation, many turn to CryptoPhunks.

Regardless of the rights, the numbers that the BAYC collection has adopted are undeniable.

The power of numbers

In the past 30 days, the BAYC collection has accumulated a trading volume of almost 44 ethers, according to OpenSea. It is impressive that the minimum price from BAYC rose by more than 50% in November alone and the average price is around 56.5 ethers, which shows that the minimum price can easily approach that of punks.

BAYC minimum price for 7 days | Source: OpenSea

CryptoPunks Collection has collected 32,005 ethers in the past four weeks. Since the sale of Punk No. 4156, according to data from Dune Analytics, the minimum price has continuously decreased by 7% in a month-on-month comparison.

BAYC price development vs. CryptoPunk | Source: Delphi Digital

Because of the focus on reserve prices, the number of unique holders in the NFT collection is often overlooked.

It could be argued that the higher the number of sole proprietorships, the more successful the collection. In fact, it is widely used and less dependent on a small group of individuals who can easily burn gas with a single transaction.

Comparing the two collections, BAYC has nearly 6,000 unique holders, while CryptoPunks has less than half at just 3,273. According to LarvaLabs, the top 10 CryptoPunks owners have more than 100 punks in their wallets, with most wallets containing 410.

List of Top 10 CryptoPunks Hodlers | Source: LarvaLabs

Dune Analytics says the top wallets own 1.05% Ape, which means that no wallet owns more than 105 Ape. This means that BAYC has a larger number of individuals in the community who not only own the majority of the collection, but also share a common sense of value.

Percentage of monkeys owned by the top 50 owners | Source: Dune Analytics

Potential “flipping”

The focus is on “When / will BAYC turn over CryptoPunks?” Perhaps the bigger question is, does that matter?

Although Ape is turning punk around, many assume that Ape will never surpass high-end punks like the Alien or the CryptoPunk version of Ape. Some argue that the BAYC collections lack an intuitive “state-graded” scope, making them more difficult to evaluate.

Only time will tell if Ape Punk is going to turn around or not. History could change, however, and focus more on the value that both collections gain over time than on market capitalization and price floors, regardless of copyright restrictions.

After all, there is always another potential “blue chip” in front of you.

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